Happily Ever After
by Wolfen Dreams
Summary: Sequel to 'Fairy Tales' Katara visits the Fire Nation after the war, and learns that sometimes Good Enough Ever After is as good as your going to get.


A/N: This is set after Fairy Tales. There is some Kataang, some Sokkla, and some Azula/OC

**Disclaimer: **I am the proud owner of my own imagination and all it creates. Unfortunately, my imagination was not the one that came up with Avatar, so I don't own it.

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Katara loved Aang, she really did. There was a reason she was still married to him, after all. But even so, sometimes 'Avatar Duty' made her want to rip her hair out. Katara was water; she adapted well, and she herself was always changing, shifting, and moving. Travelling with the avatar was one to the best things to happen to her. She never felt stagnant, stuck in the same place. Even when riding a flying bison lost some of its novelty, there were always battles and things to find and fight and clean and help and _do._

Now, however, it was all diplomatic. And Katara was many things, none of them diplomatic. After one memorable meeting where Katara threatened the ambassador of the Fire Nation with freezing a certain part of his anatomy if he did not agree to compensate the Northern Water Tribe for the damages inflicted by the siege, Aang decided she shouldn't be allowed in the meetings anymore. Which added another thing to the things that she hated about post-war avatar duties.

Katara hated that she couldn't help anymore. She hated that even travelling seemed the same now. She hated seeing the scars of the war. She hated listening to the bitterness everyone still held. She hated being reminded of things lost during the war (_childhoods, hopes, lives, futures, innocence, her mother, her brother_). And she hated that she hated it all so much. She wasn't fourteen and seeing the world for the first time anymore. Now she was older, and tired, and ready to stop traveling so much. She was ready to have a home to return to when a job was done, rather than just another task.

Yes, there were many things that Katara hated about Aang's job now. Most of all, though, she hated going to the Fire Nation Palace. She hated entering the throne room and seeing the burn marks that even the best cleaners couldn't get out. She hated being taken back to that final battle, where she lost so much; where she almost lost everything. And she hated watching _her._

Of course, Katara knew she had no real reason to hate _her_. She had proven herself to them, and she had been their friend, and it was thanks to her that they won (Aang had been almost done for when the Fire Lord was distracted by his daughter). And Katara shouldn't expect it of her not to marry. Wasn't marriage expected of royalty? Especially when the current ruler hadn't had any heirs? Still, when Katara watched Azula holding her baby, sitting with her husband at dinners, and not think of her brother. What right did Azula have, to be married with children, living that fabled happily ever after, when her brother was _dead._ And for her.

So maybe Katara didn't have a right to hate her the way she did. It didn't stop her.

So when at _another _one of the diplomatic suppers that they attended there, where Azula announced the impending birth of her second child, Katara ran out in the middle of the meal, Aang simply nodded and understood. Katara knew he couldn't leave, and if he did, she would probably yell at him (_Why would you do that? You know how much your presence means to these people!_). Aang couldn't leave, but he could send someone after her.

"Katara?"

"Go away." Katara ground out. "I don't want to talk. Especially to you." Azula sighed.

"Then I won't talk." Azula said as she sat down on the bench next to Katara. She turned to stare at the moon.

"You know, _he _talked to me about her," Azula said, nodding towards the moon.

"I thought you weren't going to talk," Katara muttered.

"I changed my mind. You don't have to talk, though. Just listen." Katara rolled her eyes, and tried to think of a way to leave. She could just get up and leave, but she was trying to learn diplomacy, and then maybe she could do _something._

There was silence for a few moments before Azula spoke again.

"I remember it was a full moon, before I'd joined you. I'd already gotten used to the fact that he wouldn't talk to me on a full moon. I never understood it, but I didn't really need to. I wasn't ready to admit anything yet." Azula paused, caught in memories from what had to be lifetimes ago.

"I was wandering around. Though I could never remember why, I lied to Mai and Ty Lee about what I was doing in the middle of the night. I always pretended I was patrolling the perimeter, trying to find the avatar. And there was no reason that I shouldn't patrol on the full moon. Not that they would have questioned me... they knew better than that." Azula's voice was hinted with the slightest bit of regret. Sometimes she couldn't believe that that was the sort of person she had once been.

"When I noticed him, I was confused. I thought it was some sort of group unity thing you guys always did on the full moon. I imagined it would be some sort of barbaric thing, like dancing naked around a bonfire in front of some temporary chief. I remember I always thought it was only barbaric sorts of people who had chiefs instead of royalty." Azula laughed at a memory of long ago, where she had once discussed something similar with her mom.

"I asked him what was going on, and he told me. It was probably the first time he really confided in me about anything. He told me how he fallen in love with the daughter of the chief of the Northern Water Tribe. And how her life was a gift from the Moon Goddess. How Zhao killed the Moon Goddess. And how Yue took her place. It was the first time I thought about the real cost of the war. The first time I realized that expenses of the war weren't really the crops, and the metals, and the firepower, and the money. It was about the lives. The ones lost, or the ones left behind, the ones affected and hurt and ended. And it was the first time in my life I ever considered the possibility that someone who died didn't deserve it." Katara looked up. "I changed my mind about it. Her life was forfeit." Katara's expression twisted into shock. Azula didn't stop. "I'm still not sure that everyone who dies doesn't deserve it."

Katara glared. "How can you say that? Why would you say that?" She yelled.

"Because it's true. Everyone does something in their life that earns death for them. They live too long, like those who die of old age. Or they never had a chance, like Yue. Or they made a mistake when they were fighting, like the soldiers who died. Or they were evil. Like my father." Azula finished quietly.

"Do you think my brother deserved it?!" Katara asked angrily.

"Sometimes," Azula answered. "He jumped in front of the fire ball meant for me. Either he was stupid enough to think he would survive it, or he was stupid enough to sacrifice himself."

Katara spluttered angrily. "How can you say that?!" She asked again. "He sacrificed himself for _you!_"

Azula ignored her. "And sometimes, I think that maybe it wasn't he didn't deserve it. Maybe being a good person and forfeiting your life for something you believe in the way the he did means that you don't deserve it. Maybe no one deserves death. Maybe we shouldn't have killed my father. He sacrificed himself for something he believed in, didn't he?"

"But he was killing people!" Katara shouted.

"And Sokka didn't? Don't tell me he didn't. I saw him kill soldiers on the way into the palace. So did you. So did Aang. So did I. We all killed. Do you think we should be put down?"

"No! We had to kill to stop him! They would have killed us!"

"And we killed them. Do you think if they were the ones who won, if they were the ones sitting here talking, don't you think they would be saying the exact same things about us?"

"But they wanted to dominate us! You know it was wrong!"

"Was it wrong? Weren't we wrong to them?" Katara continued to stare angrily.

"How can you say that?"

"I'm not saying I changed my mind. I'm trying to explain. Death happens. Maybe they deserve it, maybe they don't, but it happened. Do you think hating me for continuing to live is going to bring Sokka back? Do think if I hadn't married, or had kids, in case Zuko never had any heirs, Sokka would have somehow come back? No. Don't you think that you would hate me all the more for wasting what Sokka gave up so I could have? Don't you think I thought of this?" For a moment, Katara was speechless.

"Officer Wang Fire is handsome, high-ranking, a firebender, and a Zuko-supported choice. He's probably who I would have married if there wasn't any war. He's going to be diplomatic and high-paid and take care of me for my whole life while I sit in the palace and come out with children for him. Is it the life I would have chosen for myself? Maybe not. Maybe I'd still like to be fifteen and free of guilt and regret and hunting the avatar and getting everything I want. Maybe I'd still like to be sixteen and suddenly a different person, and sneaking off to kiss the boy I love. Maybe I'd like to be sitting at home complaining about the cold while my husband comes home complaining about how trying to get a fishing hook out of his thumb with another fishing hook never looks. Maybe I'd like to be old and gray and telling stories about my glory days to my grandchildren and their friends, and tell them how the cold is worth it. Maybe I'd like to pretend that fairy tales end with Happily Ever After. They don't. My mom told me one fairy tale, before she realized it was hopeless for me. There wasn't a Happily Ever After. There was only a Good Enough Ever After, and maybe I realized that I'm going to have to take what I can get." Azula finished.

Katara stared at her in shocked silence.

"Maybe you should take what you've got for a Happily Ever After. It's as good as it's going to get."


End file.
